


Darjeeling Express

by Ealasaid



Category: Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: Crack, Gen, Humor, Marijuana, Stupidity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-31
Updated: 2012-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-30 10:19:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ealasaid/pseuds/Ealasaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Sleuth discovers a new kind of tea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darjeeling Express

**Author's Note:**

> (Prompt: Team Sleuth gets a hold of contraband, i.e. pot)

“What is this stuff?” Sleuth asked, poking the pile of green on his desk. Ace Dick had brought it back from somebody’s apartment after a, uh, somewhat not strictly legal search.  
  
“I dunno,” Dick growled. “Jus’ thought y’ should take a look at it. Found it hidden in th’ guy’s underwear drawer.”  
  
“Why would you—” Sleuth slapped a hand over his face. “Never mind. PI, what d’you think it is?”  
  
Inspector oogled it curiously and delicately picked one of the small round balls up. “I do not know,” he said at last, and sniffed it daintily. “It is unfamiliar to me, but it looks like tea and smells a little like it...”  
  
“Huh,” Sleuth said. “Well that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Who would hide tea in their underwear drawer?”  
  
Inspector looked at him blankly. Sleuth slapped a hand over his face again.  
  
“You know what,” he said exasperatedly and waved a hand in dismissal. “Take it, PI. We could use a cup of tea or something, why don’t we try this stuff out ourselves?”  
  
Inspector nodded and scooped up the pile, putting it back in the little glass jar they had retrieved the mysterious tea from. “I will just be a moment,” he said faintly and went back to his own office and his electric water heater.   
  
When he returned ten minutes later with a steaming pot of tea and some lovely (but low-quality—Dick had a tendency to smash things) tea cups, Sleuth and Dick were in the middle of arguing out possible motives for the perpetrators of their latest case. They took their cups without comment, Dick with a little milk and Sleuth with unreasonable amounts of sugar.   
  
It wasn’t until they had all had a cup and had worked the conversation from motive to method that Inspector was starting to feel a little odd.   
  
“Stop ooglin’ me,” Dick grumbled from his corner of the office.   
  
“What?” Inspector said dreamily. He vaguely realized he had been preoccupied with staring at the wall behind Dick’s head for quite a few minutes now (though it felt quite longer than that). It was a lovely wall. The fine sifting of dust on it lent pretty patterns to the surface.   
  
“Huh?” Sleuth looked up. His eyes grew wide and the look of alarm on his face was patently ridiculous, Inspector felt. “PI, why are there two of you?”  
  
“What?” the Inspector said blankly, only to hear it repeated in precisely the same cadence a beat behind his speaking it. He blinked and looked to his right just as his doppelganger looked at him.  
  
“Oh,” he—or both of him—said in tandem. Inspector became enamored with oogling himself.  
  
“What even the fuck,” two Sleuths said flatly. From the corner, Ace Dick and Ace Dick in a wig snickered.  
  
“You are my imagination self,” Inspector commented mildly to his neighbor, who oogled him peaceably back.  
  
“It is wonderful to meet you,” Imagination Inspector said politely, and offered him a hand. They both smiled shyly and regular Inspector started to giggle, for no real reason at all.  
  
Sleuth was taking it with a lot less interest. He eyed his imagination version narrowly. “Hello.”  
  
The other was just as skeptical. “Hi.”  
  
Ace Dick did not even seem to notice that his double existed.   
  
“What is even going on right now?” Sleuth asked hazily. It sounded as though he was trying to get worked up over it, but could not quite work up the interest. “I’m pretty sure we’re not drunk. Are we drunk?”  
  
“I did not put anything in the tea,” Inspector said mildly, and checked to see if there was anything left. It was getting hard to concentrate, but he was pretty sure that the tea was delicious and he wanted more of it.  
  
“It might _be_ the tea,” his double put in helpfully, sounding much more aware of what was going on.  
  
Imagination Sleuth boldly strode into Inspector’s office and retrieved the bottle of tea leaves. “I bet it is,” he said excitedly. “Obviously this tea is important if it causes the drinker to access the imagination world while in the real world.”  
  
“Huh,” regular Sleuth said. He sat back down behind his desk and ran a hand slowly through his hair. “Cool.”  
  
“Cool?” demanded imagination Sleuth. “This is the break through we’ve been waiting for! Now that we know what’s at stake here, what the goal is, we can crack this case wide open!”  
  
“I would care a lot more, I really would,” regular Sleuth replied sounding slightly apologetic, “except GPI on high, I am _starving_. PI, could I have some of your biscotti please?”   
  
“That sounds nice,” Inspector admitted. It sounded delicious, actually, and he was suddenly aware that he had a sudden craving for crunchy biscuit. “Would you like some as well, Dick?”  
  
Dick answered with a snore. He had fallen asleep in the corner.  
  
Imagination Sleuth and Inspector traded looks. “Why don’t you go out and get some food?” Sleuth offered kindly. “We can work on the case while you, er, eat something.”  
  
“ _Really?_ ” Regular Sleuth sniffed. It looked like he was going to start crying, as though his imagination self’s generosity was too much. “ _Thank_ you.” And with that, he feebly grabbed Pickle Inspector and tugged him out of the office building at a snail’s pace.  
  
“Oh, wow,” Sleuth said dazedly when they made it onto the street. “It’s so _loud_.” Inspector giggled at Sleuth’s astonishment and braced himself against the building to counteract the effects of rushing cars and chattering people going past, because Sleuth was right and man it was like he’d just walked into this wall of tangible sound and how crazy was that? Walking into walls of sound. Inspector pictured it like walking into a ripply glass wall.  
  
The two detectives made their way down the street with some difficulty and went to a tiny cafe on the corner not too far from the office building. Goggling, they sat down in a booth and dazedly ordered food, which came after a long stretch of golden honeyed time wherein they sipped water and stared out the window.  
  
“Here’s your food, gentlemen!” the waitress chirped after ten minutes, and set down the pasta and pizza they’d ordered.  
  
“Oh thank GPI.” Sleuth practically cried. He picked up a slice of piping hot pepperoni pizza and took a bit. Around the scalding cheese he made a positively sensual moan, which Inspector could not scold him for; he was busy weeping over how creamy the alfredo sauce on his pasta was. The waitress looked at them oddly and moved on with a nervous glance back.  
  
“This is _amaaaaaa_ zing,” Sleuth murmured through a mouthful of melted cheese and crust. “How is this even a thing, this is so great.”  
  
Inspector hiccuped a sob and forked more pasta into his mouth. “I know,” he wept. “I know, Sleuth, I know.”  
  
They remained at the restaurant, progressively ordering and eating more food. There were just so many delicious things, and it would have been too unfair to favor one dish over another. They’d rung up a substantial bill by the time their imaginary selves became worried enough to come down to pick them up, lolling between heaps of dirty dishes.


End file.
